Wrigley Field Turns 100, and Other Milestones Arriving in 2014

For some people, time can become abstract. If you say that Wrigley Field will celebrate its 100th anniversary on April 23, the milestone resonates, but much of the context is lost.

Baseball was well into its modern era when the stadium, then known as Weeghman Park, opened its doors for the Chicago Whales of the Federal League in 1914. The first game took place just over two months before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that precipitated World War I (the Whales were on the road losing to the St. Louis Terriers on the day Ferdinand was shot).

The opening predated the birth of the boxer Joe Louis on May 13 (the Whales were off that day). It predated Babe Ruth’s major league debut on July 11 (the Whales lost to the Brooklyn Tip-Tops). It even predated the world’s first electric traffic signal, which was installed Aug. 5 (the Whales beat the Baltimore Terrapins).

Two years later, the Cubs replaced the Whales in the stadium, which was still a single-story structure. Before the 1927 season, what had been called Cubs Park was renamed Wrigley Field after the team’s owner, William Wrigley. The surrounding residential area of Chicago’s North Side came to be known as Wrigleyville, after the stadium.

Wrigley has always had unique charms, but for a ballpark to be in continuous use for 100 seasons is unusual. Fenway Park had its centennial in 2012, but no other park has made it that far. Tiger Stadium was closest at 88 seasons, and the original Comiskey Park in Chicago made it to 81. Other parks that attained celebrated status were not around nearly as long, including Ebbets Field, which served the Brooklyn Dodgers for just 45 seasons (though we have been hearing about it ever since the Dodgers left after the 1957 season).

Over the years, Wrigley Field slowly changed. A second deck was added, the rooftop bleachers across the street went from homegrown fun to big business, and lights for night games were eventually installed (even if the Cubs use them less than any other team). But the park retains the charm of a different era.

The team’s loyal fans have spilled quite a bit of Old Style beer over the years, but the Cubs have had little use for Champagne, not having won a World Series since moving to Wrigley from West Side Park.

As Lance Berkman, a player who spent time with the rival Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals, told The Dallas Morning News in 2013: “But really, what kind of history is there? It’s not like there has been one championship after another. It’s mainly been a place for people to go and drink beer.”

Or, as Lee Elia, a former Cubs manager, asserted in a famous rant, 85 percent of the world works during the day, and the other 15 percent goes to Wrigley to boo the Cubs.

There is a strong possibility that no other stadium will match the endurance of Fenway and Wrigley. The next-oldest active park is Dodger Stadium, built in 1962, which sits on valuable land that is often mentioned as a potential site for housing. The only other parks built before 1989 are Angel Stadium, Oakland Coliseum and Kauffman Stadium, none of which are likely to survive on any sort of nostalgia (especially not the rapidly rotting Oakland stadium). Even the Red Sox have acknowledged that Fenway cannot last forever.

But Wrigley has endured this long based on beer sales, mediocre teams and sunny days. There is no reason that formula could not work for another hundred years.

POTENTIAL ACHIEVEMENTS Though the season-long suspension of Alex Rodriguez limits the number of big milestones that could be reached in 2014 (he is close to 3,000 hits, 660 home runs, 2,000 runs batted in, 2,000 runs and 10,000 at-bats), Albert Pujols, with 492 home runs and 1,498 R.B.I., is poised to join two elite clubs.

Derek Jeter, who has announced that this will be his last season, is 198 hits short of tying Tris Speaker for fifth on the career list. But proving that not all milestones are positive, he is also on the brink of being the 15th player to record 8,000 outs.

Adam Dunn, at 1,870 games, could become the 14th player to play 2,000 games without making the postseason, and the unsigned Octavio Dotel would extend his record number of teams played for to 14 if he signed with someone other than the Astros, the A’s, the Tigers, the White Sox, the Royals, the Mets, the Rockies, the Pirates, the Braves, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, the Yankees or the Blue Jays.

And this year, if he is lucky, Ben Revere of the Philadelphia Phillies, who already has 1,400 career plate appearances, might finally hit his first home run. But fans should not hold their breath.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP10 of the New York edition with the headline: Wrigley Field Turns 100, and Other Milestones Arriving in 2014. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe